Michigan State (2-4) vs. Maryland (4-2) Game Preview

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The Spartan defense was playing okay, but it totally melted down against Northwestern in a 54-40 loss when the secondary made Clayton Thorson look like Tom Brady and couldn’t do anything to slow down RB Justin Jackson. And that was supposed to be the rock.

The offense hasn’t been able to find itself and hasn’t been able to come up with the same game twice, but this is Michigan State – it’s always supposed to rely on the D, and it’s just not there.

Depth is a bit of an issue on the line, and the linebacking corps is desperately missing an injury Riley Bullough, but there’s still way too much in place to get by a Maryland team that’s just trying to dink and dunk its way to a possible bowl season.

No one’s expecting miracles from the Terps, and they’ve hit a wall over the last two weeks in blowout losses to Penn State and Minnesota, but with three of the next four games on the road – and a home game against Ohio State in the mix – all of a sudden, Michigan State becomes the easy game on the slate up until the regular season finale against Rutgers.

It’s also this simple, Michigan State. Lose this game, and with Michigan and Ohio State still to play, along with a road game at Penn State, the season might effectively be over.

There’s absolutely no excuse for the Spartan running game to be so miserable. The line isn’t generating any sort of a push – 51 yards against Northwestern, really? – with way too many great backs to be this poor.

It’s not going to explode this week, but the Terp run defense is just soft enough to have a few issues. The bigger problem is Perry Hills. The Maryland quarterback is still having problems with a shoulder injury, and freshman Tyrrell Pigrome isn’t quite ready for primetime yet, doing an okay job over the last two games, but the offense isn’t scoring.

It won’t be impressive, but Michigan State will at least get a win to stop the brutal slide.